Here are some ideas, which you can use to dramatically improve the results of all your written marketing.

It’s all about the marketing power of headlines.

Your headline has to capture the reader’s attention

Headlines are important. Really important.

You see, it doesn’t matter how great your message is, if too few people read it. That’s where your headline (or title or subject line) comes in. The headline’s primary job is to attract attention, gain interest and then motivate the reader to carry on reading.

Think about it:

The headline is what inspires prospective clients to open your marketing email.

It’s what motivates them to read your blog post or article, when someone shares it on a social network.

It’s what compels them to listen to your podcast or watch your video.

It’s also what grabs their attention and interest when they see one of your advertisements.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy was in no doubt regarding the importance of headlines. He famously said:

“When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”

Treat your headlines with the importance they deserve. Give yourself plenty of time to craft the best headline possible. The following tips and examples will help you get the balance right.

Your headline should accurately reflect your content

Because headlines play such a huge role in getting your content noticed, it’s tempting to over exaggerate them. (Yes, the headline of this post is a tongue-in-cheek example of what I mean).

Sometimes called clickbait, these attention-grabbing headlines are proven to generate traffic. The reason I strongly recommend most people reading this not to adopt that headline strategy, is this:

Your headlines make a promise, which your content MUST deliver on.

Make your headlines as compelling as you can. Use words that will compel people to read what you have to say. But make darn sure that your content backs up the promise of the headline. You may be able to fool someone once or twice with clickbait. But unless your content delivers on the promise of the headline, people will quickly learn to ignore you.

Your headline needs to be written for your target market

Your marketing message is intended to connect with a very specific group of people: Your prospective clients or customers. The headlines you use should do the same. This means speaking their language and addressing their concerns and opportunities.

Here’s why this matters:

By focusing your headlines around the interests of your target market, you help your marketing message to attract the attention of the right people.

Conversely, by using headlines that attract the attention of a wider group of people, you cease to be directly relevant to your target market.

In other words, use headlines that are directly relevant to your prospective clients.

Your headlines should match your medium

If you’re writing a headline that’s intended for a print magazine, newspaper or flyer, you have certain freedoms, which you don’t have when writing for the internet.

For example, if you want your internet article’s headline to be fully displayed in search results, you need to use around 60 / 65 characters or fewer. Going beyond that will see your headline cut short.

If your headline is intended for email marketing, you need to take other things into consideration. For example, if you include exclamation marks!! in your subject line, along with a number and maybe a word that’s in ALL CAPS, it’s highly likely to end up in a lot of spam or junk filters. Email software looks for certain common factors used by spammers and if it sees them in the email headlines you use, it could wrongly treat your marketing as spam.

In short, you need to adapt depending on the medium you’re using.

The only 2 types of headline that matter

There is a lot of debate among marketing professionals, regarding the correct way to use headlines.

They take entrenched stances, each insisting that their approach is the only strategy that’s professional or effective. In almost every case I have seen, they totally miss the point!

When it comes to the headlines you use in your marketing, there are just 2 broad categories worthy of your attention.

Headlines that work for you and your business goals.

Headlines that are failing you and your business goals.

You need to find the correct balance for what you want to achieve. And it will differ depending on your brand, your industry and your business model.

For example, BuzzFeed has grown into a very successful media business, initially relying heavily on a controversial, yet powerful headline formula. Many labelled their approach as being linkbait or clickbait. And they were wrong. That’s because the quality of the BuzzFeed’s content was consistently compelling, so their readers returned. In fact, they returned and re-shared, which helped the readership grow even faster.

In summary

Experiment until you find what works best for you. Test and measure your headlines, titles and email subject lines. Just make sure that your content delivers on the promise they make.

Get this balance right and you can dramatically and measurably improve your marketing results.

The leadership expert who’s just like all the other leadership experts. (Think about that for a moment).

Others are harder to spot

The social media guru, who used tricks to attract half a million followers.

The accountant, who understands numbers, but can’t clearly explain what they mean to your business.

The strategist, whose own strategy is failing.

The business development coach who’s never built a successful business of their own.

Protecting your business from bad advice

The personal recommendation of a trusted friend is usually the least risky way to find an expert provider. Just make sure the friend has recent, first-hand experience of the quality of the provider’s work.

Another option is to find someone, whose work you’re already familiar with. If, for example, you subscribe to a provider’s Podcast or YouTube channel and they regularly share useful information, they’re showing you 2 things.

The fact they have turned up consistently, demonstrates a degree of reliability. This is especially if they have many years worth of material available.

You get to see, first hand, just how knowledgeable they are, from the quality of information they share.

With an attractive looking website and some testimonials, anyone can claim to be an expert in anything. And that’s why we, as business owners, need to look deeper. Because the cost of hiring a bad business provider is far, far higher than their fee.

I was in a coffee shop once, when a guy with a very obvious hairpiece came in. He had natural, thick brown hair around his ears, with a jet black wig on top. Of course, no one mentioned it to him. People just smirked when he wasn’t looking. Whether this chap needed the hairpiece for vanity or medical reasons, it’s entirely possible he has no idea that his wig is so poorly matched to his natural hair.

A very similar kind of silence happens regularly in business. And it can lose you a fortune.

Allow me to explain.

We go to a website to check out a potential service provider, find the site is amateurish and decide not to consider them. We don’t call them to let them know their site created such a bad impression. We silently move on.

We start reading a poorly-written piece of marketing and quickly discard it. We don’t email the company and tell them their content is losing them business. We silently move on.

So, faced with all this silence, how do you figure out if what you’re doing is working for you? Simple. You ‘listen’ to what your results are telling you.

For example.

Your website should be a 24-hour, business generating machine. If it isn’t, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that it urgently needs to be improved.

Your content marketing should regularly attract sales, sales leads or new clients. If it isn’t, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that you need to quickly improve your strategy.

So start listening

Don’t wait for someone to tell you your marketing sucks. Because they won’t; your friends don’t want to upset you and strangers don’t give a rat’s ass. Instead, listen to what your results are telling you.

People often ask me for tips on how to build a bigger list. They want more subscribers; more readers, more listeners, more viewers, more followers, etc.

The short answer is simple. It’s this.

Do something useful, which is worthy of people’s attention and make it easy for them to subscribe.

If you do that, you’ll attract more people and because your “something” is useful, many of them will subscribe. Think about it. That’s the exact process, which motivated you to subscribe to every list you’re on. Something attracted you, you found it useful, you subscribed.

This begs the question – If the answer is so simple, why is it so darn hard to build a large and valuable list?

Here’s the answer.

The advice is simple. The process is tricky!

There’s some tricky stuff between you and that massively valuable list you want.

Finding something useful to share, on a regular basis, is tricky. Remember, if you just churn out the same stuff as others in your industry, you won’t attract subscribers or retain them. This means you’ll need to be willing to do some research. You’ll need to become a regular note-taker. A collector of ideas. It’s interesting work, but if you’re not already someone who studies and takes notes, it can be a tricky transition.

Finding the time to create content is also tricky. You’re already busy, right? Developing content around all that interesting material you have, takes time. That time is easy to justify when you have a huge list. It’s harder to justify, when your hard work is being consumed by just a small number of people. You’ll need to push through the tumbleweed and crickets of the early stages. And I know from personal experience, that can be a real challenge. [I explain why here].

Summoning the courage to publish your stuff is tricky. Why? Because if you do it right, you’ll attract critics. Someone once told me that we have a choice to make. We can either be criticized or be ignored. If we’re being ignored, we’re invisible. That’s not good for any business. The alternative is to not only expect criticism, but to welcome it as a positive sign that we’re no longer being ignored. Don’t set out to attract critics. Set out to be useful and worthy of attention. But see criticism as an inevitable part of becoming visible. Tip: Here’s why people criticize you and how to deal with it.

Once you know what’s involved, building a valuable list is pretty easy. And the rewards are huge.

Picture this: Just imagine what a difference it would make to your business, if you were in regular contact with thousands of prospective customers. Not via advertising, which is usually seen as an unwelcome interruption. But via a subscription to your content, which people proactively requested because they WANT to hear from you.

The opportunity is amazing. And it’s right in front of you. Right now.

I receive a few dozen important marketing emails every day. Of course, none of these messages are important to me.

They are not even of interest to me.

Most are not even relevant to me.

They are only important to the people sending them!

I’m sure you get these emails too. The special offers that aren’t remotely special. The poorly targeted offers, which are totally irrelevant to you and your needs. The outright spam. And anything with the word “webinar” in it!

Here’s the thing: Before you invest in your next marketing email or mail shot, press pause. Ask yourself who it’s supposed to be important to — you or them. Because if it’s only important to you, you’re not marketing to people. You’re interrupting them.

Do it again and you’re pestering them.

How to get it right

A far better approach is to wait until you have something to say, which is worth listening to. Then share it with people who have given you permission to contact them. A valuable message, sent to people who want to hear from you, is vastly more effective than a selfish request from a stranger.